


Day 14 - Heat Exhaustion

by fanfictiongreenirises



Series: Whumptober 2020 [14]
Category: Batman (Comics), DCU (Comics)
Genre: Bruce Wayne is a Good Parent, Dick Grayson is Robin, Don't copy to another site, Gen, Heat Stroke, Superman cameo, i really don't know how to tag this honestly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-14
Updated: 2020-10-14
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:28:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27004345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fanfictiongreenirises/pseuds/fanfictiongreenirises
Summary: Bruce knew he shouldn’t have let Dick go on that camp.No 14. IS SOMETHING BURNING?Branding |Heat Exhaustion| Fire
Relationships: Dick Grayson & Bruce Wayne
Series: Whumptober 2020 [14]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1947217
Comments: 18
Kudos: 186





	Day 14 - Heat Exhaustion

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: vomiting (no one @ me ;~; )
> 
> Disclaimer: at this point i'm being repetitive enough w the vomiting plots that there's a real possibility i could own dc, but i do not
> 
> I Have to talk about my [favourite heat stroke fic](https://www.fanfiction.net/s/5401654/1/Shaded) here now bc I read this way back in like 2014 or something and it has lived in my mind rent free ever since. (yes it's supernatural. it's also one of my favourite spn fics in general too honestly?)

THIS FANFICTION IS HOSTED ON **ARCHIVE OF OUR OWN** , WHERE YOU CAN READ IT FOR **FREE**. IF YOU’RE READING THIS ON A DIFFERENT WEBSITE, IT WAS POSTED THERE **WITHOUT** THE AUTHOR’S CONSENT.

They’d finally found the tiny group of campers that had gotten lost. Superman had helped the search and rescue team, called in by Bruce when Batman couldn’t be present.

Dick had been in the camping group that had gone missing, and as his guardian, Bruce was expected to be present at all the grief counselling sessions, and generally, by the phone, for the entire day and a half since they'd gotten word.

Bruce hadn’t been _too_ embarrassed when he’d called Clark, because this was _exactly_ what he’d been fearing when he’d reluctantly signed the permission slip.

Bruce got out of the car, watching as Superman took off just as he stepped forward into the absolute circus that was happening in the main auditorium of Gotham Academy. He knew that Clark would probably check in with him and Dick later, when they got home, and right now he was just relieved at not having to waste brain power thinking about Superman.

He frantically glanced over the room, looking for a familiar mop of dark hair. It really didn’t help that Dick was small for his age, and that about half his classmates looked identical from a distance. In the back of his mind was the knowledge that Alfred still didn’t know – he’d gotten the news while he was halfway to the office, and he’d turned around in an instant.

And then he spotted him. Bag about the size of his torso, patterned with ninja turtles, and a wide-rimmed hat still on his head. He was looking around at the little clusters of parents and kids, swaying slightly as he stood.

Bruce bee-lined towards him in an instant.

“Dick?” he called, shoving people out of the way as politely as he could.

Dick turned around, relief colouring his face as he saw Bruce. “Bruce,” he said, and he seemed to slump a little in his stance.

Bruce crouched in front of him, the need to check him over taking priority over the urge to clutch him tight. “Are you okay?” he asked, even as his hands methodically ran over Dick’s arms and shoulders lightly.

Dick nodded, which caused him to stumble slightly. With a frown, Bruce stood back up and glanced around for a chair.

“C’mon,” he said, nudging Dick towards it. He asked, “What happened?” when they finally got to it, Dick sitting down almost like he was in a daze.

“Uh,” Dick said, blinking a little. “This guy came, said he was looking for one of the other boys. The one whose father just had that merger with Lex Luthor. He separated us from the rest of the group. But we had an escape plan. So it would’ve still been fine if Superman hadn’t arrived.” And then he gave Bruce a smile that was more like _Dick_ than any of the behaviour he’d been displaying since Bruce got here. “Not that I’m complaining.”

“You did good,” Bruce said, voice hushed. “I’m proud of the way you handled the group.”

Dick huffed a small laugh, leaning against the back of the chair. “You don’t even know if I did anything,” he said.

“Course I do,” Bruce said, and he wasn’t exaggerating – Dick was a natural leader with plenty of charisma even from his young age, and with the skills he possessed as Robin, he was constantly finding himself in charge of his peers whenever there wasn’t an adult present.

“Hey, B?” Dick said suddenly. “Can we go home? I don’t feel so good.”

Any momentary levity immediately left Bruce. “Don’t feel good, how?”

“Headache,” Dick said, but Bruce knew that Dick typically began with the least painful first. “Uh, I feel kinda nauseas, so if I throw up on you, that’s your fault. And dizzy.”

“Dick,” Bruce said as realisation dawned on him. “How much water did you have to drink?”

Dick grimaced. “A little bit?” he said. “We were kinda low on water. On everything, really. But everyone else is fine.”

“C’mon, chum, we need to go see your school nurse.” Bruce had finally spotted her, in a stereotypical nurse uniform. In front of her, however, was what appeared to be the entire group. “You might have heatstroke.”

Dick frowned. “I don’t feel _that_ bad,” he said. "I wore this hat the entire time."

His head rocked back slightly as Bruce felt the temperature of his skin with the back of his hand. Dick’s cheeks and the tips of his ears were reddened, something that Bruce had attributed to sunburn, but he should’ve known better – Dick’s dark skin was far more likely to tan than it was to burn, and he’d been wearing a hat that covered his whole head.

Instead of making Dick walk there, he picked him up. It was like lifting a sack of helium balloons. He stepped over to the front of the line, where a very intense couple were demanding the nurse check over their daughter once again.

“Ma’am,” the nurse said, a plastic smile on her face, “I can promise you that Abigail is perfectly fine. She just needs to drink a lot of fluids and use something like aloe vera on her shoulders. Now, if you would both excuse me, the rest of the children are still waiting.”

She had just turned towards Bruce when Dick let out a cough that was much too familiar to Bruce.

“I think I need a bucket,” he said.

The nurse, to her credit, didn’t even blink at his words. There was a little vomit bag in his hand in the next instant, and he shoved it in front of Dick’s face just in time. Dick gagged as strings of bile were ejected from his mostly empty stomach, and Bruce winced in sympathy, knowing how painfully his stomach would be convulsing now. He held Dick's fringe back with one hand, though the hair there wasn't long enough to come in the way of his mouth.

The best outcome of Dick being sick was that it cleared about half the room, some of the parents backing away as they gave the two of them space. One of them supplied a chair, in which Bruce placed Dick, holding him upright with one firm hand on his shoulder.

When Dick was finished, Bruce took the bag and sealed it, placing it beside them to dispose of later. The nurse came over at that moment, a bottle of a bright green liquid in her hand, and two ice packs in another.

“Hi, dear,” she said to Dick. “How’re you feeling?”

Dick gave her a weak smile in response. “Hot,” he said.

The nurse nodded. “You seem to have heatstroke,” she said. “Take small sips of this. I’m guessing you didn’t have nearly enough water.”

Dick accepted the bottle, and took three large sips from it. Bruce took the opportunity to respond.

“He’s been using medication recently that has vasoconstrictors,” he explained. “It’s on his forms, but I didn’t think it’d be an issue.”

The nurse had a confused look on her face, probably wondering just what medication Dick would be taking that would require vasoconstrictors, but to Bruce’s relief, she didn’t pry. Instead, she gave a reassuring smile.

“Don’t worry, he’ll be right in a couple days,” she said. “Just keep him hydrated, and take a cool – not cold, a _cool_ – bath when you get home. Ice packs and cooling blankets are good, too.”

Bruce nodded, though he knew all of this. “Thank you,” he said. “I think we’ll head home now, if you’re feeling up to a drive, Dick?”

The nurse stood to check on other children, but Bruce barely noticed.

“Yeah, let’s go,” Dick said readily. He stood on wobbly legs, still holding onto the now half-finished bottle.

“You okay to walk, or do you want—”

“I can walk,” Dick said quickly, with a glance to the rest of the room.

Bruce sighed at the memory of school life. He hoped the kids in this group wouldn’t use this as an opportunity to gather fodder for bullying. “Alright,” he said. He picked up the vomit bag to place in the bin on the way to the car, and then slid one of the straps of Dick’s bag onto his shoulder.

“Where’s Al?” Dick asked. Every time one of his exposed body parts touched Bruce’s, he winced at the warmth radiating from Dick.

Bruce resisted the urge to mutter a curse as he quickly whipped out his phone, sending a quick text to Alfred saying that Dick was alright and that they were coming home soon. Then, he opened up the door to the backseat and got out their emergency medkit, the ones that were in every car that he owned, and got out icepacks, handing them to Dick.

“He’s waiting for us at home,” Bruce said, reading the incoming text. “So’s Clark.”

Dick gave a tiny, but very real, smile in response, and Bruce gave one in return as the car roared to life.

**Author's Note:**

> I think this is. my tenth? fic w puking dick? (in my defence, it's a symptom of So Many Things don't blame me blame the human body)
> 
> Thank you for reading! This has been [cross-posted onto tumblr](https://fanfictiongreenirises.tumblr.com/post/631935207845543936/day-14-heat-exhaustion)


End file.
